Al Wadzinski’s third solo show in New York features carefully assembled icons comprised of humanity’s cast-offs, the remnants of our bloated consumer culture now repurposed as inert fetish objects. The centerpiece of the exhibition revolves around a massive golden calf, referencing the Old Testament story, but this god-proxy’s body is a shipping cart filled with gold-painted bones and bookmarked with wheelbarrows, shovels and other tools of toil.

Wadzinski, a Native – American, is fascinated by the relationship between the diverse objects, finding relationships both symbolic and absurd. His research into the exhibition theme revealed a wide variety of icons, idols and symbols, both historic and modern, upon which to base his fantastic creations. “I was drawn to the themes of iconography and idol worship,” explains the artist, “because they draw upon symbols of fabricated belief systems. I relate to this because as an artist, I am a fabricator. The objects in the work are manipulated and distorted, highlighting the manipulation of human behavior through the use of images and symbols in objects of idolatry.”